not_a_moonie | Room 302, Monday Morning

Alana didn't have a roommate, so letting the room get messy wasn't really a problem. But when she tripped on a stack of magazines and noticed that more of her floor was covered by clothes, books and random junk than was actually floor, she decided it was time for some spring cleaning. So she put on a reggae CD and got to work.

She realized as she went along that she didn't need to keep some of her clothes. If she was going into the army (and at this point it felt inevitable), she probably wouldn't get a chance anytime soon to re-wear any of the dressy dresses she'd bought for dances over the last three years. Reluctantly, she set them into the pile of things to give away.

It was still several weeks until graduation, but the cleaning made it feel closer than ever. Alana was glad to have dust bunnies that she could blame her sniffly nose on.

[OOC: Cracked door, open post.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

rebelseekspizza

Dante blinked. He found the clearest spot on the bed and sat down on it. "There are points in these?" he asked.

He sounded genuinely curious.

From:

not_a_moonie

"Not in all of them," Alana conceded. (And especially not in the shirtless-guy ones stashed in her room.) "But some of them, sure. Like my favorite writer's always writing weird ghost stories and messed-up things with people from different planets playing cards, but really they're all about how stupid war is. You just have to read between the lines a little."

From:

rebelseekspizza

"So how does that work out?" Dante wondered. He eyed the stack of remaining paperbacks.

Yeah, the chances of him sitting down long enough to actually read one were slim to none. Still. Alana seemed to care.

From:

not_a_moonie

Alana crinkled her nose. "A lot of it's cultural," she admitted. "You have to know things like this one general had tusks like a walrus, so the walrus in an aquarium story is supposed to be him. And he had to be subtle to get past censors and everything. It's, what's the word. Symbolism."

She was impressed with herself for remembering what the word was. Alana cared about this stuff, but she was no one's idea of a brilliant student.

"But when you understand the message, it's like everything else clicks into place."

Edited Date: 2016-03-15 12:15 pm (UTC)

From:

rebelseekspizza

"So when the walrus is bossing somebody around, you go hey, right, that's that asshole general who won't stop screwing things up and ruining the world for everybody," Dante mused.

Beat.

"Is there a general with tusks like a walrus?"

From:

not_a_moonie

"Pretty much," Alana nodded. "And not anymore, but there used to be. He died when I was a kid. And yeah, he was a total asshole."

From:

rebelseekspizza

Dante mulled that over. "How many types of al-- people are there where you come from?"

From:

not_a_moonie

Leave it to Dante to ask the tough questions.

"I dunno," Alana said, after a moment trying to count it up. "Dozen or so, maybe? But that's like asking how many countries there are on Earth. Some people must know, but I bet you don't."

From:

rebelseekspizza

"I'd remember having like, tusk people living somewhere, though," Dante pointed out.

Look, the whole aliens thing was still kinda new, as much as he tried to take it in stride.

From:

not_a_moonie

"Not if there had been tusk people your whole life," Alana shrugged. "And fin people and robot people and -- one of my favorite actors looks like a freaking praying mantis. You just don't think about it."

She nudged him with her shoulder. "I wish I could take you home. You'd see how not-weird it is."

From:

rebelseekspizza

"Probably not a good idea, with the war and everything." Plus Dante didn't actually want to find out what her people would do with him if they figured out-- well, were there crazy-strong self-healing people or whatever over there, actually?

"But you know what, I'm going to take your word for it," he said, smiling at her. "I grabbed two beers on the way here. Wanna take a break and help me kill 'em?"

From:

not_a_moonie

"I'd say 'so come after the war is over,' but we'll probably both be like eighty by then," Alana conceded. Landfall itself was safe, but she understood why Dante didn't want to step into the middle of somebody else's fight.

"Anyhow," she added, "Great idea. I've cleaned enough to deserve a beer break. Gimme."

From:

rebelseekspizza

Dante didn't even want to get anywhere near his own world's fight; anybody else's sounded like an especially bad case of borrowing trouble.

He pushed his hand into his coat and pulled two bottles out of hiding, passing one on to Alana. Then he rooted around his pocket until he found his bottle opener.

He popped the cap off of his own bottle first, then offered the opener to her. "You find anything else cool in this pile?"

From:

not_a_moonie

"Memories, mostly," Alana said, poking into a pile. "Stuff my first roommate left, stuff my second roommate left, pictures of my sophomore boyfriend, pictures of my junior boyfriend ... I swear, it makes me feel a little like a black widow. A lot of people come and go."

From:

rebelseekspizza

Dante shrugged. "That's the way it works most of the time, right?" he said. "You had fun where you could."

From:

not_a_moonie

"I did," Alana agreed, nostalgically, then shook her head to get herself out of this whatever. "And the fun's not over yet, right? Let's drink and you tell me what you've been up to."

From:

rebelseekspizza

"Bunch of shit," Dante said, taking a swig of his beer. "Hanging around Baltimore, mostly. Caused some trouble with Isabela and Ada last week."

Tried succesfully to ignore the whole Ringo situation.

From:

not_a_moonie

"I'm sure," Alana said, grinning a bit at the description. She sipped her own beer. "Baltimore still there?"

From:

rebelseekspizza

"Most of it," Dante said, grinning. "We, what d'you call it - redistributed some wealth and got into this rocking hotel, but we didn't set anything on fire."

He figured Alana'd be cool.

From:

not_a_moonie

"Awesome," said Alana, who thought that sounded like a pretty good night all around. "You got a cool hotel, huh? Did you and Isabela and Ada, um ---"

Was there a hand gesture for "threesome"? If not, Alana was doing her damnedest to invent one. She knew it wasn't really any of her business, but she figured a girl had a right to a little prurient curiosity.

From:

rebelseekspizza

Dante gave a casual gesture that probably meant Yes, but more closely approximated Eh ~~because at this point in the SP it's likely but we're not there yet~~. "Last week was the week for it," he said thoughtfully. "'s weird. Woulda thought sex week would've been it."

From:

not_a_moonie

"Sex week was pretty good for them for me," Alana said casually -- which it was, in that it had been her only one. "Guess I need to sleep with more people. There aren't enough guys here and lots of them aren't my type."

Said 'type' could perhaps best be defined as 'trouble, but really good-looking trouble.'